“Fiction'sessential activity is to imagine how others feel, what a Saturday afternoon inan Italian town in the 2nd Century looked like. My ambition is solely to getsome effect, as of light on stone in a forest on a September day.” – GuyDavenport 

Writer,translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and teacher, Davenport was botha Rhodes Scholar and a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, one of the few peoplein the world to achieve both major honors.  Born in the Appalachianregion of South Carolina on Nov. 23, 1927 he was a self-taught reader andwriter who graduated from high school by age 16, then went on to earn degreesat both Duke and Harvard.

Overhis lifetime he had more than 400 nationally published essays and reviews,wrote 17 novels, a dozen books of poetry, and contributed to several dozenother books or collections.  And, he did all that while teaching fulltime and drawing or painting nearly every day of his life from age 11 on. A number of his art works are on display in galleries across the country.

Indefatigablewas often a word used to describe him, but he said it was “just something Ifelt I had to do to keep my life in balance.”  He wrote right upuntil his death in 2005.  He said that of all his writings, he mostenjoyed fictionalizing historical events and figures – a sort-of “What If?”scenario that make his works both fast-paced and intriguing.  Among his many award winners were TheBowmen of Shu, The Drummer of the Eleventh North and The Bicycle Rider.

“Aslong as you have ideas, you can keep going,” he said.  “That's whywriting fiction is so much fun: because you're moving people about, and makingsettings for them to move in, so there's always something there to keep workingon.”